'Sheltered' a unique tale of apocalyptic 'preppers'

"Sheltered" spins intriguing story about a teenager dealing with a community perpetually preparing for the end.

In the past six months I have written more than my fair share of columns about books that take place in post-apocalyptic wastelands and dystopias. I enjoy such stories, and the world of fiction has seen a glut of them. This week's featured tale looks at that popular genre from a new angle. Instead of a story that serves as the sequel to our world, it tells the story of a group of people anticipating that brave new world and decisions they make based on those fears.

Writer Ed Brisson and artist Jonnie Christmas’s new book “Sheltered” is billed as a “pre-apocalyptic tale” and is set in a world that does not appear to be any different from ours. As the book starts we are introduced to a group of characters that are sometimes referred to as “preppers.” These individuals operate under the assumption that the world as we know it will end sometime in the near future and actively work to prepare for this eventuality. At this point in the story we are given only the flimsiest reason to believe that these fears have any foundation in truth, but the characters fully believe that they need to be prepared for a near future of hardship and danger. Outside their fenced in compound exists a world of technology, radio, and seemingly functional infrastructure but within its confines exists a group of people convinced that the government will target them and the end is near.

Not all the residents of the community believe in the cause though. Victoria Eckersly, a teenage girl who just arrived with her father, is entirely unconvinced that the end of the world is coming and miserable with the decision her father made to move them. Refusing to make friends with most of the residents Victoria is seen as an outsider, as is her father, and along with her only friend Hailey, is outside the bounds of the compound when the end does come about. This isn’t the end of the outside world, but the end of the carefully constructed community built within. Raised in a world of practicality, hard decisions, and fear of the future, the adolescent boys and girls take matters into their own hands in an effort to apply those same rules to their own lives when one individual is certain that a grave threat is coming and his father chooses not to act in accordance to his fears.

While most post-apocalyptic stories have elements of fear and tension, the ones that I have read pale in comparison to Brisson’s pre-apocalyptic tale. Given the far flung, and frequently far future, elements of so many post-apocalyptic stories it is sometimes difficult to relate to them and so that fear is seen through a veil of fiction. “Sheltered” on the other hand is a story of people living in our world and in a way that is realistic, even though many of us may not choose to pursue it. At its root is psychology and pressure exerted on young people with access to dangerous tools and living in a world shaped by fear and reacting in accordance with it. As an outsider Victoria shares our fears and we fear for her as our proxy. With so many stories on the market telling of our terrifying future, Brisson and Christmas's new book stands out by telling an even more terrifying tale of the present as it is shaped by the fear of the future.